Percy and His Friends Read THE LIGHTNING THIEF
by Athena310
Summary: Please R&R. Excactly what the Title says. Udated every 1 or 2 days. Promise, unless on vacations and can't bring the computer or no internet.
1. Chapter 1

_**Percy Jackson and his friends read**_

_**The Lightning Thief**_

**THIS TAKES PLACE 1 YEAR AFTER THE WAR.**

**INTRODUCTION**

Percy opened the door of his cabin; he had heard a knock and a strange voice saying, "Package for Mr. Jackson!" When he opened the door to see what it was he saw a rectangle shaped object wrapped in brown pieces of paper. He ripped off the paper and saw a book it looked like it was called HET GTNLGIHNG EHFTI. He went to find Annabeth, Grover, Thalia (The hunters were visiting Camp Half Blood), and Nico. When Percy found all of them he told them to go to Zeus's Fist. Finally he said, "I found a book in front of my cabin that was for me and I have a feeling we should read it." "Sure," everyone chorused. "I'll read first," Annabeth said. "Okay," everyone agreed.

**Okay that's it for now, but since it's short, bookmark it and visit it later on today and I'll have the first chapter of THE LIGHTNING THIEF updated. – Athena310**


	2. Chapter 2

**ONE**

**I A C C I D E N T L Y V A P O R I Z E**

**M Y P R E – A L G E B R A T E A C H E R**

**Look, I didn't want to be a half blood.**

"Who does" Thalia asked to no one in particular.

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one****, my advice is:**

"Oh no! Seaweed Brain is giving out advice! That's horrible!" Annabeth exclaimed. Everyone else except for Percy was rolling on the ground laughing.

**close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life****.**

"I know I'm going to regret saying this, but that's actually good advice." Nico said.

**Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

"Too true." Grover said, " Too true."

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

"Us too." Everyone chorused.

**But, if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you. **

"Who?" Rachel asked. No one answered.

**Don't say I didn't warn you****.**

"You didn't warn us." Everyone except Rachel said teasingly. Rachel still didn't get it.

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

**I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York****.**** Am I a troubled kid? Yeah. You could say that****.**

"Percy is a troubled kid!" Everyone said to Percy. Percy answered," Oh, shut up. And no more comments 'till we finish this chapter or we'll never finish." "Fine."

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan-twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff**

**I know-it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were. **

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.  
Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. **

**You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.  
I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in, was I wrong.**

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that . . . Well, you get the idea. This trip, I was determined to be good.  
All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.  
Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from P.E. for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs.**

**He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.  
Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death-by-in-school-suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.  
"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.  
Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."  
He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.  
"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.  
"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."  
Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.****  
****Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.  
He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.  
It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.  
One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me real serious and said, "You're absolutely right."****  
****Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.  
Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"  
It came out louder than I meant it to.  
The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.  
"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"  
My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."  
Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"  
I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"  
"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because . . ."  
"Well . . ." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"  
"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.  
"Titan," I corrected myself. "And . . . he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"  
"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.  
"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the titans," I continued, "and the gods won."  
Some snickers from the group.  
Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"  
"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"  
"Busted," Grover muttered.  
"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.  
At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.  
I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."  
"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"  
The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.  
Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."  
I knew that was coming.  
I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"  
Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go-intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.****  
****"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.  
"About the titans?"  
"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."  
"Oh."  
"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."  
I wanted to get angry; this guy pushed me so hard.  
I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No-he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.  
I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.  
He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.  
The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.  
Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, and wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.  
Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Luncheables crackers.**

**Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something out of a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing. ****  
****Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.  
"Detention?" Grover asked.  
"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean - I'm not a genius."  
Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"  
I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.  
I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.****  
****Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.  
I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.  
"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.  
"****Attractive" Hermes laughed****.  
I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.  
I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"  
Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.  
Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"  
"-the water-"  
"-like it grabbed her-"  
I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.  
As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. **

**"Now, honey-"  
"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."  
That wasn't the right thing to say.****  
****"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.  
"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."  
I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.  
She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.  
"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.  
"But-"  
"You-will-stay-here."  
Grover looked at me desperately.  
"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."  
"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.  
I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. I then turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.  
How'd she get there so fast?  
I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.  
I wasn't so sure.  
I went after Mrs. Dodds.  
" No don't do that!" Apollo said.  
Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.  
I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.  
Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.  
But apparently that wasn't the plan.  
I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.  
Except for us, the gallery was empty.  
Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.  
All the gods were frowning again.  
Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it . . .  
"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.  
I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."  
She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"  
The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.  
She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.  
I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am."  
Thunder shook the building.  
"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."  
I didn't know what she was talking about.  
All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.  
"Well?" she demanded.  
"Ma'am, I don't . . ."  
"Your time is up," she hissed, her eyes glowing like barbecue coals." Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.****  
****Then things got even stranger.  
Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.  
"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.  
Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.  
With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.  
Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.  
My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.  
She snarled, "Die, honey!"  
And she flew straight at me.  
Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.  
The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hiss!  
Mrs. Dodds was a sandcastle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.  
I was alone.  
There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.  
Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.  
My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.  
Had I imagined the whole thing?  
I went back outside.  
It had started to rain.  
Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."  
I said, "Who?"  
"Our teacher. Duh!"  
I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about****.  
****She just rolled her eyes and turned away.  
I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.  
He said, "Who?"  
But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.  
"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."  
Thunder boomed overhead.  
I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.  
I went over to him.  
He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."  
I handed it over. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.  
"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"  
He stared at me blankly. "Who?"  
The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."  
He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"There, I'm done. Who wants to read next?" Annabeth asked. "I will." Thalia answered, " Any chance off teasing Percy is worth reading for."

**Sorry I haven't being updating I was on vacation. I won't be going on any vacation for probably 1 to 2 weeks if I'm correct. So, I'll be updating as much as possible. In August I'm going to China for a month just to let you guys know. And, I'm not going to update till I get 5 reviews. –Athena310**


	3. Chapter 3

_**G R O V E R U N E X P E C T E D L Y L O S E S H I S P A N T S**_

"I'll read next," Nico said.

"**Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants," **Nico read and then looked at Grover with a raised eyebrow, "Okaaayyy".

The satyr just blushed.

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"That probably wasn't smart," Nico said.

"But nobody ever said that Percy was smart!" Annabeth chuckled. Everyone agreed and Percy scowled, playfully.

**I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to he sixth grade?"**

"Because we just get stronger when we get older and so does our scent," Thalia said in a harsh voice though she wasn't really directing it at anyone in particular. "And with a child of the big three there..."

**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.**

"You should never have let him out of your sight!" Annabeth exclaimed.

"I honestly didn't think he would leave," Grover said with a sigh.

**Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

"She's awesome!" Percy said and everyone seemed to agree with him for once.

"Yeah, you really are lucky," Thalia said, thinking about her own mother.

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.**

"Your mom doesn't seem to be that unlucky," Rachel said.

"Now she's happy... but back then it was pretty bad," Percy grimaced.

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high **school** working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no **diploma**.**

Everyone was frowning at that; okay, so maybe Percy had a point about the rottenest luck thing.

**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because **_**it **_**makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

"I suppose that could be true from a certain point of view," Annabeth said. "At least he is in the sea."

Percy looked slightly upset and looked away. "Yeah, I guess."

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him,**

"And that's being generous," Percy grumbled.

**then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

"Ew... why did she marry this guy?" Rachel asked making a face.

Percy didn't answer as he crossed his arms, frowning.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.**

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

**"Where's my mom?"**

**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

"He asked you for money," Thalia said, disgusted.

"Yeah... and that's not the first time," Percy grumbled.

**That was it. No **_**Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**_

"What would have you done if he did say any of these things?" Nico asked.

"Probably died of shock," Percy shrugged.

**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

"Ew!" all the girls said to this**.**

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

"He didn't actually touch you, did he?" Annabeth asked narrowing her eyes.

"No," Percy said, but his eyes had become hard as steal as he recalled his recollection of finding out he had hit his mother. No one liked the look in his eyes, but no one asked him about it.

**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

Grover snorted at that; it was truer than Percy had realized at the time.

**"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

**"Am I **_**right**_**?**_**" **_**Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

**"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

**"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

"Disgusting," several people said winkling their nose.

"Tell me about it," Percy agreed.

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

"I bet you're really mean that when you see your mom," Annabeth said and Percy smiled, she was quite right of course.

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds,**

"Wow... it was that bad!" Nico exclaimed.

**or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

Percy grimaced, wondering if some kind of monster was looking for him at that moment.

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**

"Aw..." several people teased, and Percy tried not to look embarrassed by that.

**Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.**

"That's because she understands the bad things about you better than you do at the moment," Annabeth said.

"I know," Percy replied.

**I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

**"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.**

"Awesome," Nico smiled.

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

"Aw..." Thalia repeated.

"Will you stop that?" Percy groaned.

"Not likely," Thalia shrugged.

"You know she's only doing that because she jealous right," Nico said and wish he hadn't because Thalia was now giving him, her death glare (which he wasn't sure if it was real or not).

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

**I gritted my teeth.**

Much like he was doing at this moment, and he wasn't the only one that was annoyed with Gabe.

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

"I think she's quite happy with Paul actually," Annabeth said. "And he's no millionaire."

"Yeah, she is," Percy smiled. "But he is a good guy."

"And trust me... it's no picnic being married to a millionaire," Rachel muttered.

"I thought your dad was more like a zillionaire," Percy said, but Rachel just rolled her eyes at him.

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.**

Several people rolled their eyes at that statement.

**I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

**Until that trip to the museum ...**

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

**"No, Mom."**

"Liar!" Nico said chuckling at his own joke. Nobody else did.

**I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

"No, it would have made sense to her," Annabeth said. "She probably wouldn't have liked to hear it though."

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

**"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

**"Three nights—same cabin."**

**"When?"**

**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

"Annoying jerk," Percy muttered under his breath as he clenched his hands into fists.

**I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

"I think I would have just punched him," Thalia muttered. Percy laughed, hearing her.

**"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

**"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

**"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

"Argh," Percy growled, hating to hear this more now than he did at the time.

**"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

At this however, Percy smiled and then started to laugh.

"I take it that the car doesn't make it, then?" Thalia chuckled. Percy nodded, remembering the night.

**"We'll be very careful."**

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

"Interrupting your game... he gave you money, isn't that enough for him?" Annabeth said heatly.

"Nope," Percy said, clenching his teeth together.

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

"Do it!" Thalia said.

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

**"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

"Which I'm sure there was," Rachel said.

"Not that he detected," Percy said, smugly.

**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game.**

**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

"Did she know what happened?" Nico asked.

"More than I thought she did," Percy shrugged.

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

Again, Percy started to laugh at this.

**Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

"Um... what did happen there?" Percy asked. But no one answered him, but Annabeth had a pronounced scowl on her face.

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**

Annabeth shivered and nearly dropped the book at that.

"Um... don't like spiders?" Rachel said with an amused expression. Annabeth just glared at her.

"Arachne's descendants hate any descendants of Athena." She then continued reading.

**and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**

"I didn't know that the water ever bothered you!" Annabeth said. Percy looked thoughtful at that; he wouldn't have said that it bothered him...

**I loved the place.**

"You love a place with spiders in the cabinets," Annabeth said shivering again.

"Yeah," Percy shrugged. "I don't suppose you want to go there with me."

Annabeth glared at him as he chuckled.

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

"What's up with the blue food?" Annabeth asked, she had wondered this before but never really had the chance to ask him about it.

"Um... is it in the book?" Percy asked, not wanting to explain it if he didn't have to.

"Yeah..." Annabeth said, blushing a little. She should have just kept reading.

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"That makes sense," Annabeth said.

"It also happens to be my favorite color," Percy said.

"I know that, Seaweed Brain!" Annabeth rolled her eyes.

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

"Hm... if the muses can get a guy to write these books in a year, maybe they could help mom put something out," Percy thought.

"I don't think she wants any help," Annabeth said.

"Yeah, you're right," Percy nodded his head in agreement, but he would like to see a book that his mom wrote on the shelf of the bookcase he had here.

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

"You like hearing about your father," Thalia said, her face was a little guarded.

"Yeah," Percy said, leaving out the fact that he thought his dad was dead, not that he was abandoned.

**"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

"Hmm... yeah, he might be a little proud of you now," Annabeth teased. "You know, after you saved Olympus and all."

"I know... I'm awesome," Percy said smugly. "You're not half bad yourself... you know."

"Jerk!"

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"**

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**"But... he knew me as a baby."**

**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

"That's kind of harsh," Rachel said.

"It's life for most of us," Thalia shrugged.

"That doesn't make it any less harsh," Rachel said.

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

"It seems like he watched over you at least," Rachel mumbled.

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...**

**I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

"Well, that last reason is enough to make anyone angry," Thalia said, in a teasing voice though she meant every word.

"And it's not like he can marry your mom anyways... he already has a wife," Annabeth said.

"Yeah, but it seems like all the gods are married and they still have tones of children," Thalia said. "It makes it rather awkward when you meet their wife."

"Tell me about it," Percy and Nico said making a face.

"I'm glad I don't have to deal with that," Annabeth smiled.

"Yeah, you're just a figment of your mom's imagination," Percy teased.

"That's not what I am," Annabeth rolled her eyes.

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

**"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."**

**"Because you don't want me around?"**

"Of course not, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth groaned. "I can't believe you asked her that."

**I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

**My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I—I **_**have **_**to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."**

**Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

"That's an understatement if I've ever heard one," Thalia chuckled.

"Like any of you are normal," Rachel said.

"Like you're any better," Thalia countered and Rachel shrugged.

**"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

**"Safe from what?"**

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

Percy frowned at that, wondering what this Cyclops had wanted with him and he couldn't help but think of his brother.

Thalia, Annabeth and Grover, however, all shivered at this thinking about their experience with a Cyclops.

**Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

"Um... I don't know if that was a monster attack or not," Grover muttered.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

Percy was now grimacing at this, wishing that he would have just told her and maybe the Minotaur wouldn't have... no, he shouldn't think like that.

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**

"I can see her point, but she really should have let you go before this," Thalia said, envying Percy for having the nice family life, but knowing it was harder for him to leave.

**"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

**My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

**"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."**

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

"Woman and using their tears against you," Percy muttered unwisely as the three girls glared at him, the worst coming from his girlfriend.

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

"This should be relieving," Annabeth said.

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

"Ah, yes... a good old fight against Zeus and Poseidon," Rachel said.

**The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

Everyone shivered at that.

**I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, **_**No!**_

"So you were already dreaming about Kronos back then," Annabeth muttered.

"It looks like it," Percy said, but of course at the time he had no idea who had been laughing in the dream.

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

"Hm... well, it seems like they are fighting just as fiercely as that dream suggested," Thalia frowned.

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

Percy tensed and then narrowed his eyes at the book, knowing what was about to happen.

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

**Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"Who was he then?" Rachel asked.

"Um... it was more like what he was then," Percy said.

"Oh... well then he was exactly Grover... you were just seeing the real him for the first time," Rachel said, contently.

"Whatever," Percy rolled his eyes.

**"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

**My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

**I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

_**"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" **_**he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you **_**tell **_**her?"**

"Well obviously not or she wouldn't have asked what happened at school," Percy rolled his eyes.

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—**

"Grover... how could you not have your pants on!" Nico exclaimed and then chuckled.

Everyone else just rolled their eyes.

**and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...**

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: **_**"Percy. **_**Tell me **_**now**_**!"**

"No... tell me where his legs should be..." Nico said, laughing again.

"You find the oddest things funny," Rachel looked at him raising an eyebrow.

Nico just shrugged at that.

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

"Well, they are things to be scared about and your mom knows it," Annabeth said.

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. **_**Go**_**!**_**"**_

**Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

"Thank you for finally telling me about his feet," Nico said.

Annabeth just shook her head at him. "That was the end of the chapter... I think Rachel should read the next one."

"Sure," Rachel said, taking the book.Top of Form

Bottom of Form


	4. Chapter 4

Sorry

Sorry. I can't write for 1-2 months. But, I'll update a lot after 1-2 months. Possibly one update each day. Sorry.-Athena310


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